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Commencement

This is part of our Take a Closer Look series. This regular feature offers a behind-the-scenes view of some of our hidden treasures in our library and what they reveal about our shared past.

Commencement exercises have a long history in North America. In Virginia, the College of William and Mary held its first graduation ceremony in 1700. There are several items in the VHS collections related to commencement exercises. This “Take a Closer Look” feature looks at a few of them.

Samantha Hukeless undoubtedly was excited to graduate from Van de Vyver Institute, in Richmond, in June of 1934. The predominantly African American Van De Vyver Institute was originally begun as a school attached to St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Jackson Ward; the school offered both academic and vocational courses. Founded in 1885, St. Joseph’s was the first Catholic institution for African Americans in the South. The school was begun a few years later; it was renamed the Van De Vyver Institute in 1910, in honor of Augustine Van de Vyver (1844–1911), who served as the bishop of the Diocese of Richmond from 1889 to 1911. The school operated under that name until 1969, when it was closed. In 1934 it put on a play as part of its commencement activities. Samantha Hukeless played “Henrietta Darby, the Widow” in the three-act comedy And Home Came Ted, by Walter Ben Hare. Hukeless, later married to James Roots, worked for many years as a clerical assistant and teacher’s aide at several Richmond middle and high schools.

View other items related to commencement exercises in the slide show below.

Diploma awarded to John Thomas Barefoot, Jr., in 1928, by the Bliss Electrical School. The Bliss school began in Washington, D.C., but moved to Takoma Park in 1908. Bliss became well known for its training of electrical engineers, at a time when the field was rapidly expanding. The Bliss Electrical School was subsumed by Montgomery College in 1950. (VHS call number: Mss1 B2374a o.s.)

Dorothy Elizabeth Hicks (1915-2002), circa 1937. Hicks modeled this fashionable outfit in front of “Battle Abbey,” the colloquial moniker for the building which then housed the Confederate Memorial Association. By 1946 the Confederate Memorial Association was subsumed by the Virginia Historical Society; the society moved its headquarters to Battle Abbey in 1959. A photograph of Hicks (then “Miss Dorothy Walton”) similar to this one appeared in a local newspaper; both of these images are found in her scrapbook. (VHS call number: Mss5:7 H5292:1)

This is a page from a scrapbook compiled by Dorothy Elizabeth Hicks (1915–2002). Dorothy Hicks (née Walton) attended what was then Westhampton High School on Patterson Avenue in the West End of Richmond. Hicks kept photographs, birthday cards, calling cards, and commencement programs in her scrapbook, along with newspaper wedding announcements of friends and family members. (VHS call number: Mss5:7 H5292:1)